The 99th Divorce

She had seen it, and she had understood. That was enough.

Ou Ming pulled himself off the floor. He slowly felt his way to the bedside and sat down.

On the other side of the door, Yu Lili’s voice was becoming increasingly louder and sounding increasingly crazed. Her hysteria was obvious. Finally, her pounding on the door softened, and her desperate shouts trailed off until nothing could be heard.

Ou Ming leaned against the bed and bit his bottom lip. He was trying hard not to cry out. The tears that trickled out the corners of his eyes tasted salty on his lips and carried the scent of weakness. It was such an embarrassment.

So be it.

Ou Ming started to feel dizzy. As he leaned against the bed, he drifted off into a deep sleep.

When he awoke, he had absolutely no idea how long he had been sleeping. Since he couldn’t see, he wasn’t able to tell apart daylight from the night sky.

Ou Ming stood up. He felt a strain emanating from his shoulder. There was complete silence outside. Yu Lili had left.

…

In order to be able to meet Yu Lili anytime his grandmother wanted to, Shen Zhilie brought the old lady to wait at a café near her apartment complex. Seated there, they were able to see everyone who came in and went out.

Kingstown was a metropolis. Generally, during this time of the year, the whole city could almost be called a ghost town.

Old Mrs. Shen rested her head on the table while staring outside, afraid that she would miss a glimpse of Yu Lili’s return.

Shen Zhilie sat opposite the old lady playing with a game on his mobile phone. The sound effects could be heard. He was deeply engrossed.

Suddenly, the old lady jumped up and yelled, “Lili! Lili is back!”

Without giving Shen Zhilie any chance to react, she ran out toward Yu Lili.

Shen Zhilie quickly closed his game app and chased after his grandmother. “Grandma, Lili won’t be back at this hour. Please just be good and wait for her inside. Perhaps when Lili returns, she’ll find you well-behaved and reward you by spending even more time with you.”

His coaxing fell on deaf ears.

The old lady’s steps were too quick. Like an overgrown child, she called out happily, “Lili, you’re back!”

Yu Lili didn’t expect the old lady to reach her so quickly. She pressed the tears in her eyes back and tried to maintain some sense of normalcy. “Old Mrs. Shen, what are you doing here?”

When she heard that, Old Mrs. Shen became unhappy and asked, “Why are you calling me Old Mrs. Shen? Call me Grandma instead, will you? I’ve been waiting here for you for a long time. Can we go for Thai food now?”

“Didn’t you have that for lunch?” Yu Lili asked.

“Nope,” Shen Zhilie answered on his grandmother’s behalf with a tone of helplessness. “Grandma insisted on waiting for you to go with us, so we just settled our lunch nearby.”

As he spoke, he noticed Yu Lili’s obviously swollen eyes that resulted from an afternoon of crying.

It wasn’t just Shen Zhilie who didn’t call her out on it. Even Old Mrs. Shen, who constantly behaved like a child in front of Yu Lili, acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary. She went up to Yu Lili excitedly, hooked her arm around Yu Lili’s and announced, “Let’s go together now!”

Old Mrs. Shen was excited. She knew Yu Lili would return, but she wasn’t expecting it to be this early. At the same time, she hadn’t expected that Yu Lili would come back looking so sad. It made the old lady’s heart ache.

As an elderly woman who would had experienced life, one look at Yu Lili allowed the her to guess the reason.

Well, it’s about time to pay the Ou family a visit.